


Winter's Widow

by MsMockingbird



Series: The Mockingverse [18]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Mockingbird (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Brainwashing, F/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:45:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMockingbird/pseuds/MsMockingbird
Summary: The Winter Soldier is alive and in New York. Steve is overjoyed. Natasha is...frozen in fear. Her elaborate web of lies, half-truths and silences have been unravelled. When she commits a heinous act out of rage and pain, she's stripped of her closest allies...and the comfortable fictions she's been telling herself and the rest of the Avengers.





	1. Echoes of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> 1-"Invasion" -- and this opens the instant after that ends
> 
> 2-"The Avengers Vs the X-Men"

From the ground Bobbi flung her hand up at Clint, his mouth open, visibly shocked by Black Widow's actions. He'd started forward a step. 

"Hold up, sport. I got this." 

He dropped his hands, his mouth closing to a thin anxious line . Steve and the Winter Soldier were also staring at the two women, transfixed by the sudden violence. 

Still from the ground, Mockingbird nodded in Barnes’ direction. "There's the important thing right now, sestra--" 

"Don't you call me that," Black Widow hissed, her voice low, smokey and somehow more Russian than usual. 

"All right, all right," Mockingbird said hurriedly . "I'm going to get up and then I'm going to leave, okay? We...I'll be in the gym at the usual time tomorrow and we can take this back up then. Okay?" 

The redhead nodded, once, sharply. 

Mockingbird stood up very slowly, unsteady and weak . She was bare days from fighting the leaders of a Kree invasion force and having all the blood in her body drained and replaced (1) and a few months from being spitted like a kebab by Wolverine (2). She was looking down at her feet when she stood and missed the convulsive reach Black Widow made to help her up. Even standing again her body language was hunched and crabbed, as though she was trying to make herself small. She had started to shake, with cold or pain. She raked her eyes across the men, nodding at Steve. 

"You'll want words too, I'm sure, Cap. I'm sorry I sprang this on you like that but I was three quarters sure he was going to take off again. Clint...I'm going to walk back to the Tower. You stay with--" 

"Oh, shut up," Clint said, exasperated, then threw the car keys to Steve. "I'm coming with you." He locked eyes with Natasha in a very deliberate manner, his face cool and hard. "I'm not part of this...whatever the hell this is." 

Natasha jerked her chin up in negation but didn't argue as the Bartons draped themselves around each other and left, their voices soft murmers in the darkness. 

It was hardly the first time someone she...didn't love...had walked away from her. 

*****

_“Poppa Ivan? Why are we here? It’s the first day of school,” Natalia said in her soft voice, shy and quiet._

_The tall man who’d been the only family she’d known since the fires from the sky squeezed her hand tightly._

_“This is your new school my little rose.” He gestured at the grand building, many stories tall. Its facade was elaborately carved and decorated. As the huge double doors swung ope they could see an entrance hallway heavy with rich dark wood and crimson drapes. A thin blond woman, looking bloodless and pale in the weak Siberian sun gestured impatiently at them both. Poppa Ivan tugged her along in his wake, up the stairs and towards the woman, who loomed like storm cloud on the horizon._

_“But we are so far from home, so many hours. How will I get back and forth?” She asked, desperately._

_“Oh, my little frozen rose,” Poppa Ivan murmured. He opened his mouth the say something else but by then they were passing through the front doors and into the presence of the woman._

_Natalia stared up at her, transfixed with revulsion, though she would not know the name of the emotion for many years._

_Before Poppa Ivan could finished what he was saying, the woman reached out and pried Natalia’s hand from his._

_“Thank you Comrade Petrovich, for delivering the child. You may go now.” Her words were an order and a warning both._

_Poppa Ivan looked down at her, his face twisted the way it had been when he pulled her out of the rubble of her home. He reached out a hand and she reached out hers but before they could touch she was yanked backwards by the woman. Her hand on Natalia’s was like steel and ice, cold and inexorable._

_“You may go comrade,” the woman hissed._

_“Poppa Ivan!” Natalia cried as he turned and walked away, down the stone stairs towards the old car they had driven all the way from Stalingrad. “Poppa Ivan! Please don’t leave me! I love you!”_

_“Love?” Snorted the woman as the doors were closed by two silent men in army uniforms. “What do you know of love, child? Here we will teach you of things more powerful than love. Duty. Sacrifice. Death. Come, child. You are part of the Red Room now.”_

*****

Natasha shook her head, looking up to see both men, golden and dark, staring at her. 

It was Steve who spoke first. “So, you two know each other?” He sounded distant and detached, very much in “combat” mode.

Barnes answered. His voice was low and quiet, halting. He seemed to be searching for each word, searching through a dictionary. 

“My memory. Bits and pieces are back. I remember…both of you.”

The conditioning still had partial hold on him, Natasha realized. He was half-flinching with each word not in Russian. His brain and body expected to be punished for speaking in English. 

If she ran now, just ran, she could be out of the country in a few hours. She still had safe houses, identities, resources that none of them could find…

She’d be alone again. Alone. And cold. 

So desperately cold. 

Natasha looked Steve in the eye. “Yes, I know him. I didn’t know he was Barnes—your Barnes—until you told me. I swear.”

“So, that’s only a few years you’ve been lying to me then, rather than the entire time I’ve known you,” Steve said mildly. 

“You know, I really thought you’d both be talking to me more,” Barnes said in a slightly confused voice. 

Natasha cut her eyes at him, unable to speak. 

Steve held up his hands, palms out. “I’m kinda scared you’re going to shoot me again.”

Barnes stared at him and very slowly, as though he didn’t know what the expression really meant, smiled.

Steve grinned back, looking every year of his evident youth and not a day more. He reached out and they clasped hands, smiling.

Natasha felt a surge of hopeless, helpless…emotion…for them both. She wanted to run away still, desperately, but she couldn’t. She was as trapped in New York as she had been in Siberia: bonds of comradeship and duty wrapped around her, like a warm soft blanket bound with steel chains.

“Are you staying this time?” Steve asked him, and the edge of hope in his voice was strong again. “There’s a lot I want…need…to talk to you about but if you’re sticking around I don’t have to blurt it all out at once.”

“I … think so. I told her…the blond…Mockingbird. I told her I would stay. To continue what you started. When I thought you were dead. It mattered to me. Then.”

“Then? Not now?” 

“Now too. If you want me to stay. I’ll stay.” He turned to Natasha and spoke in swift, smooth Russian, all his hesitancy and uncertainty gone. 

_”And you, my dear? Do you want me to stay?”_

_Milii moy_ he called her. _My dear_ And she could deny him nothing when he called her that. She never had been able to deny him. 

“Stay. If you want.” She said abruptly and Steve threw her a strange hurt look. Her voice was shaking with suppressed…rage she hoped. 

But Barnes…Bucky…James…The Winter Soldier just looked at her and smiled softly. 

He’d always had a very clear window onto her soul.

They drove back to the Tower in silence and Natasha left the men talking in the communal living room. She spent the night alone in her quarters, dancing until her feet bled.

*****

The next day, Natasha found Bobbi where she’d said she’d be: the gym.

She was in workout clothes, doing isometrics and light strength training. Her rehab from the injuries Logan had inflicted had gone well—unusually well—and despite neither Barton admitting it the Avengers all knew Danny Rand had something mystical to do with it. But she’d just come through a smaller version of hell and it had set her back a month or more. She was moving slowly, for her, and little micro expressions of pain flickered across her face when she did certain movements.

When Natasha walked in, in her full combat outfit, Bobbi was balanced on one hand, her toes pointed to the ceiling. She peeled down and stood very still in the middle of the room, hands out to each side. 

They watched each other in silence for a long time, Bobbi’s face set in an expression of wary resignation. Natasha caught a glimpse of herself in one of the full length mirrors.

She looked…cold. 

“Do you know?” Natasha said finally.

“Why you’re pissed at me? I have an idea.” Bobbi nodded. “It’s not because I knew that you and Barnes had history and never said anything…although…you didn’t realize I knew, did you?” The blond cocked her head gently.

Natasha felt her lips press into a thin line.

“It’s funny, isn’t it? You and I so alike we even underestimate people the same way.” Bobbi laughed without humor. “Mockingbird, always second best. You know in your head I’m a spy and a good one but…you’re the Black Widow. You’re better than me and we both know it. But second best to the greatest spy who ever lived? That’s nothing to sneeze at. I put two and two together and came up with the Winter Soldier. You never said anything to me and I thought that meant you didn’t want to talk about it. Not that you had so much contempt for me and my abilities you didn’t think I’d figure it out.”

If she’d still been human and not ice that would have made Natasha flinch. 

“I did know you hadn’t told Steve. Or Clint. I never said anything to either of them, I swear.” Bobbi dropped her hands to her thighs. “But that’s not what…you’re not angry at me because I knew you lied. You’re angry at me because I was willing to lie to _you_ and let him leave.” 

Black Widow struck from perfect stillness, like the spider that was her namesake. Her foot struck Mockingbird’s jaw like a roundhouse punch, spinning her around and knocking her backwards. A normal human would have fallen; she staggered and stumbled but came back around to face her attacker.

She didn’t retaliate, just stood there, her cheek already swelling. Her eyes were pools of quiet pain. Black Widow struck again like lightning, this time an open handed slap to the other side of the blond’s face.

Again, Mockingbird staggered, and again she did not strike back.

In silence, Black Widow set about punishing Mockingbird. 

At some point, Bobbi started to defend herself, dodging and parrying, but she was already hurting when the beating started and she took blow after blow to her face, to her torso. 

She was silent too, nothing more than a few gasps and grunts, air rushing from her lungs, the spatter of blood and sweat on the mats.

Eventually Mockingbird fell and could not get up and Black Widow knelt over top of her, hammering down on the helpless blond. 

The door to the gym opened and the air was filled with voices, deep masculine anger shaking the air. Natasha was hauled up and off the other woman by a metal hand. She had a confused vision of Clint sliding to a stop next to Bobbi, touching her face with his hand. Vision, sound, color were all muted to her, almost black and white, stark slashes of contrast and vibration.

Then Clint looked up and the world slammed back into full focus with the pure hatred in his eyes.

She heard Steve yell next to her ear. “Bucky, get her out. Get her out of here. Don’t let her leave the Tower.”

The metal hand on her arm tightened and dragged her backwards out of the room, the door sliding shut abruptly.

They were in the elevator together, James holding her tightly against his chest when what she had just done punctured the bubble of unreality she was floating in. 

Natasha crumpled to the floor at the Winter Soldier’s feet and began to weep.


	2. Love Is For Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's rage has caused possibly irreperable harm to her relationship with Hawkeye, Steve's trust in her and maybe even Mockingbird's life.
> 
> But James Barnes is back and perhaps it was worth it to her, for even a few more moments with him.

James helped her out of the elevator on her own floor, taking her to the pillowy soft couch in the living room ( _Bobbi had helped her pick that couch "Look, if I'm going to pass out on your furniture all the time, I at least want to be comfy"_ ). Sitting her down he took off her shoes and made a soft clicking noise at the state of her toes.

"Ah, my dear, you haven't changed much, have you?" he said in that beautiful fluid Russian they had given him. "Sit here, I'll be right back."

The basic layout of the residential floors were mostly the same and of course Steve would have put him up in a guest suite. He went straight to her main bathroom and came back with warm water and bandages. As he cleaned and wrapped her brutalized feet she simply sat still, quiet, like a broken doll. Her tears were dry on her face.

"Did I do that?" she eventually ground out. "I did that?" She spoke in Russian too. It gave her some distance from her actions. It had been the Black Widow, not Natalia--Natasha--who tried to beat Mockingbird to death.

"Beat an injured and unresisting woman to the ground? A woman who Steve tells me is your other best friend? The one who just faced down an alien invasion fleet on her own? Yes, my dear you did."

"Do you not hate me?"

He laughed, gently squeezing the ball of her foot in his flesh hand. "It would take more than that for me to hate you. How could I, after all I've done, judge you for...anything? What you just did was....terrible. But not more terrible than things I've done. I shot Steve, remember? And you. At least twice." He paused, his high forehead furrowing. "I haven't forgotten any other times I've shot you. Have I?"

"Clint looked like he wanted to kill me," she responded. "Even when he came to...actually kill me...he didn't look like that."

"He was the one you took as a lover after--?"

Now she turned her eyes to him and there was life in them again. "Are you jealous? You sent me away. I thought you were dead. What was I supposed to do?"

He cocked his head and pursed his lips. "Well, join a convent was my first thought."

That made her laugh, sharp and hard. "As I'm sure you would have, James."

He sat back on his heels. "I never really had the chance. They locked me away again after you fled...until Pierce brought me to the States...it was mostly just the cold. And death."

She stared at him, then leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth, full lips surrounded by scratchy stubble, tasted the same as they had when first she had done this. He was clear spring water and cold vodka at the start of a meal. He was salt tears and the taste of tundra grass, fresh stems like a lollipop. He was blood and sweat filling the mouth in combat. He was life, and death and ... not-love.

He came off his heels, hands coming together on her back, metal and flesh pressing her closer to him, but gently. James was always gentle with her, when they touched like this, to make up for how cruel he'd been forced to be.

*****

_**Years ago...The Red Room Compound** _

_The little redhead limped at the back of the pack during the morning run. In the shapeless clothes the Room provided she looked all bones and elbows. He could see purpling bruises on her limbs when the cuffs of her shirt peeled back. She would have more on her body and legs, from the way she was moving._

_She was new--he'd seen her in the classrooms as he passed for about three months--but this was the first time she'd been part of his PT group. They only gave him the strongest and best of the girls to train and no one so fresh to the program had ever been sent to him._

_That was probably why the other girls had set on her last night. He could almost see it--a similar thing had happened at...somewhere else. When he'd first been a soldier...not a winter soldier but...something else...he'd woken to hear a new recruit being picked on by the others. Socks and bundles of clothes filled with hard objects hit in silence but he was close by. He'd jumped out his bed and scattered them all. In his head, he heard the words 'Steve'll be proud of me'._

_"Ungh," he gasped as the pain slammed through his temples. He wasn't supposed to think about...that...him...the other person in his head. It had been getting worse lately, the little flashes of memory. The slips. They were going to send him back to the ice soon._

_He found himself on the ground, his gloved left hand knuckle deep in the hard dirt of the running path. He heard the servos in the joints whining under the strain, conducted up the bones in his shoulder._

_"Sir?" whispered a breath against his face. He looked up into the eyes of the little redhead. She had huge green eyes, wide and intelligent, too big for her thin face. She looked...sad. But also concerned...concerned for him. "Sir, are you well? Shall I fetch the matron?"_

_Her piping child's voice made his heart contract. Close up he could see she had bruises on her collar bone too, along her jaw. She was shaking with pain and cold and she was still more concerned about him._

_She would not survive much longer. The other girls would beat her again tonight, and every night until the pain and injury and fatigue made her falter and fail. Then she would be discarded as one more little frozen corpse, one more pile of turned earth on an unmarked grave._

_From the corner of his eye he saw his handler starting towards them. He'd know what caused the pain. The ice drew closer._

_Suddenly he knew he couldn't walk away from this one. He couldn't simply train her as though she was an automaton, the way they demanded he treat the girls. Devoid of humanity or care. He couldn't strike down her attackers as he'd struck down the ones before...but perhaps he could get her to a place of safety. Give her the tools to survive until...until he was free of the ice again. But he'd have to do it in a way that wouldn't make them suspect his concern for her. He'd expressed concern for one his charges in the past; they'd shot her in the head in front of him._

_Standing up, he wrapped his right hand around the girls arm and spun around, jerking her nearly off her feet. "You do not speak unless spoken to," he hissed at her, loudly enough that his handler heard him and stopped, nodding approval. "Examples must be made."_

_He dragged her away from the training ground, impressed despite himself with her silence. Girls this new usually screamed and cried. This girl made a single whining noise in her throat, because he had to have grabbed her on top of a bruise, but other wise merely struggled to keep up with his long strides._

_He pulled her to the line of sheds they used as 'detention" areas. "A week alone will teach you to respect the rules here," he declared loudly, dragging the bar off one door and shoving her into the tiny space. It actually had a hard little cot, a small portable latrine and a window. She turned and looked up at him, terrified but unyielding. Her chin was high and her eyes clear, without tears._

_He loved her then, for her courage and her defiance. He leaned down and whispered urgently into her ear. "Alone, you understand? No other girls. Safe to sleep."_

_It was a huge risk. If she told anyone what he said, it might be a bullet for them both._

_She nodded, her red hair shining like a rose, like blood, like fire...the life and heat he thought he would never feel again._

_But he could nurture what was here, in her, as long as they let him._

*****

**Avengers Tower, Present Day**

James pushed her back away from him. The stab of pain at his rejection barely registered through the dull ache in her head, her heart. She studied his face, that even now she knew so well. She knew his moods even better than Hawkeye's, her partner for years--and her time with James she could hold cupped in one bare hand, each second as precious as water in the desert.

"No," he said softly. "I'm not going to...we're not going to do this now, here, with you in such turmoil and my brain still broken."

"I just want to feel something other than pain, James," she said, calm and matter of fact.

"You want absolution. You want forgiveness. I can't give you either." He shook his head. "All I could ever give you was time."

He had. Even that first week he had come to her, silent in the night and sat with her in the darkness. He'd taught her as best her could the pure vicious reality of her new life. How to strike without warning. How to read your opponent's eyes, how to see their fear and use it against them. How to use anything and everything as a weapon, even your own pain.

When he trained the girls in class he singled her out over and over for punishment and approbation, his voice harsh and uncompromising. Even as she cowered and nearly cried sometimes she would look up and his eyes would be smiling. It was their little secret, and he gave her strength. Among other things.

They'd never found out how she got that little hilt-less knife that she brought into the dorm her first night back. The one she used to cut the face of the first girl who tried to touch her. The one they'd had to pry from her fist even after the terrified guards knocked her unconscious. She spent another month in solitary for that, and for three more weeks the big dark haired man taught her to survive.

Then one day he was gone. And she was alone.

Natasha stood up. He stood with her, his eyes wary. 

"Steve told me not to let you leave the Tower," James said carefully, his hands spread.

"I'm going to dance. Stay if you like," she threw over her shoulder at him, then went into her bedroom to change into her leotard and dancing shoes.

It was cruel she knew, to dance for him, but it had been his choice to push her away. 

She danced until she had undone all of his good work and then fell into her bed, still in her blood-covered shoes. He was gone when she woke up.

Natasha slathered on the analgesic cream that...Bobbi and Bruce had made for her and refused to limp as she made her way down to the medical level.

She had no idea what to expect but she was more than a little shocked that Clint hadn't come slamming into her apartment last night, screaming and swearing. She was glad to have James there, in fear of what might happen with just her former partner and her self alone under the current circumstances.

The medical bays were...silent...empty.

No busy doctors and nurses. No furious Hawkeye. No Mockingbird.

Natasha walked around the room as though expecting them to be hiding in some forgotten corner. The big flat screen TV in the corner suddenly turned on and she heard a babble of confused voices. It was surveillance footage from the medical floor itself

"What? What happened? She did _what_?" That was Doctor Cho, who'd taken over as the Avengers physician last year. She was leaning down listening to Carlotta, the head nurse.

Steve Rogers appeared abruptly in the frame, carrying Mockingbird. The big blond, tall and powerful, look like a child in his arms. She was clutching Hawkeye's hand in a death grip as he trotted beside the super soldier. The picture froze on the image of Bobbi being laid onto a gurney in the middle of the room. 

Natasha turned and looked at Captain America where he stood in the doorway, the remote in his hand. "He couldn't lift her," he said in a quiet voice. "He was shaking too much. Cho thought he was having a seizure at one point." He pressed a button and the voices started behind her. She didn't turn and look.

"I'll be right back," she heard Hawkeye snarl, his voice low and dark and deadly. "Won't take more than a minute for this."

"No!" screamed Mockingbird. "I swear if you leave I won't let them treat me! I'll fight! I'll fight everyone till the bleeding starts again, I'll fight till I bleed to death if you leave!"

Hawkeye bellowed, a single wordless shout of pure rage. The room fell to silence. The microphones in the room were so good Natasha could hear every ragged breath her former partner took.

"God damn you," he hissed. Natasha turned and looked at the TV again: he was staring at his wife. Bobbi's eye were wide and desperate and she reached out to him, like a supplicant, like a child. 

"Don't leave. Don't...I know what you want to do but don't. Don't, please. This was all my fault, not hers. Whatever she did to me, what I did to her was worse," the blond woman begged, her voice cracking.

The picture froze again.

"The internal bleeding had already begun. She started vomiting blood a couple minutes later," Steve said mercilessly. "At that point I couldn't have dragged Clint off her with a quinjet so..."

"She's in surgery?"

"No. Danny Rand came when I called him. He cleared everyone out and when he let us back in she was asleep, breathing normally and the bleeding had stopped."

"Where--"

"I sent them away, Natasha. She's technically still on the DL list and Hawkeye was frankly not much better by the time everything calmed down. I sent them away to protect her from you and you from him." He flicked off the TV. "Fury, Coulson, you all told me Hawkeye was an assassin when he worked for Shield. I'm not sure I really believed that until yesterday. That was a different man behind those eyes for a few hours. That was a killer."

"He was quick, clean, professional." Natasha said faintly. "But he hated it. Hated the very idea of it. It's why we made good partners. He never stopped looking for other solutions." She looked away and spotted what had to be Bobbi's blood, a splash of it staining the side of a cabinet. Her gorge rose and she nearly vomited; would have but she had eaten nothing for at least a day. Steve clearly tracked her line of sight.

"She never stopped defending you. Between heaves, mouth covered in her own blood, she defended you. Didn't explain, mind you. Just kept repeating that 'what she'd done to you was worse'."

"Is this where you ask me what she did to me?" Natasha said, her voice cold.

"Despite what you think, Romanoff, I'm not stupid. She must have known about you and Bucky. And when she thought we were all dead--maybe you forgot that part?--she made a deal with him to stick around and carry on for us. And then we weren't dead and she...didn't tell you or I he'd was in the city. I gotta think it slipped her mind for a moment but when she thought about it, well, every second made it all more awkward and impossible to pipe up. She was three quarters hoping he wouldn't show. But he did and...that's why you're angry. That she was willing to let him leave without telling you...me...us that he was even here."

"And that's all right? That she would to betray us both because of what? Being embarrassed?" Natasha hissed.

Rogers shook his head. "'Course not. 'Course I'm not okay with it. I'm hurt and angry and confused. But I'm going to give her a chance to explain. After she recovers from you nearly beating her to death."

"Where are they?" Natasha asked, suppressing the cringe she felt at his words.

"I don't know. Somewhere on the continent is all I asked, in case we need them back fast. I think it's best right now if neither of us knows where they are." He turned and took a few steps towards the elevator, then looked back over his shoulder. "And it's a little rich, you using the word betrayed right now. Even if you didn't know the Winter Soldier was Bucky until that armored car that's still a pretty long time not to tell me my not-dead best friend was your ex-boyfriend."

"He's not my ex," she whispered, but Rogers was already gone.


	3. Notes from the Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets back in touch with Natasha and it sends her on a trip down memory lane, to the first time the Winter Soldier met the Black Widow.
> 
> (SO MUCH ANGST)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)Intemperate and Savage, A Hawk Remembers

Natasha managed to avoid speaking to any of the rest of the team for the next three days by the simple expedient of staying in her apartment and not answering the door when someone rang the bell. 

Mostly she danced but sometimes she would simply sit in the middle of the floor, on the smooth wood Tony had installed for her. Where everyone else had a dining room area she had a ballet barre, a wall of mirrors and enough head space to do full lifts. 

She found herself staring at the furniture in the living room space, only a few pieces but carefully chosen for comfort and aesthetics. She, Clint and Bobbi had sat there eating and talking on many night watches. She could almost hear the blond’s chuckling laugh in the air now, rich and warm as hot chocolate. 

Her Starktop pinged suddenly. It was propped open on the coffee table and words flashed onto the screen: _Video Message received from **HAWKGUY**_. She could just read it from where she was. 

Feeling like a character in a horror movie, she stood up—her whole body winced at the pain in her toes—and sat down in front of the computer. Her hand hovered over the “Play” button for a long time but she eventually hit it with a sharp, spasmodic motion.

The screen filled with the image of a bedroom: cheery yellow walls, several windows with the blinds drawn, some rustic looking art and a large canopy bed with a deeply rumpled comforter. It looked like any reasonably high-class bed and breakfast bedroom. Clean, comfortable and anonymous.

Clint thumped down into frame, covering most of the image. He was wearing a ratty tshirt. He looked tired and sad as he fiddled with the angle of the camera and then eventually gave up. The top of his head would sometimes fade out of frame, depending on which direction he leaned.

“Nat. I tried to write this but I was making so many typos it looked like I was writing in code. I don’t feel that angry right now but apparently my fingers are still pissed off.” 

He reached out of frame and his hand came back holding a mug with steam rising off of it. He took a slug of the…well, come on it was coffee, please…and then spoke again.

“I never knew what it looked like from the outside to watch someone’s heart breaking. Not until I looked at Bobbi when we arrived…here. She’s barely speaking, barely eating. Watching her is like watching a pane of glass smashing in freeze frame. I can see the cracks propagating, starting from her chest.” He drank some more, looked away and looked back. Faintly through the camera mike Nat heard the sound of pans being moved in a far away kitchen.

“I asked her to make me dinner. I might be able to get her to eat something that she makes herself.  
Bobbi has no idea I'm talking to you. So, don't come at me about being "pressured" or anything. I’m not saying this stuff on her behalf. This is me talking.  
Right now, Nat, I still love you but I don’t like you very much.”

Hawkeye bit off the words with a snap, like a shark biting through bait. His face settled into a cool, hard expression. She knew the look. He’d get it on missions where he knew he was going to have to kill someone. 

She felt a stab of happiness through the agony slowly filling her head. She hadn’t seen that expression since the Avengers formed. But here it was again. Directed at her. Because of an action that she wouldn’t have taken back, even if she could.  
   
“I spent most of my adult life with you as the only person I trusted with my secrets. As the only person I could talk to who even half-ass understood what our lives were like. I guess that changed when I met her...but to me it just meant I had someone else to bounce things off. And there are things I've told you that I've never told her.” He nodded slightly. “Like you've got Banner’s ear. Sam’s too. And maybe now…Barnes, right? He’s the reason you could never say you loved me until I was ‘safe’ with her? Isn’t he? Funny thing, Nat…I’m okay with that. I would have liked to know it sooner. I assumed, when we broke up, you just finally figured out you were too good for me.”

She hit the ‘pause’ button as her heart contracted in her chest as though she were having cardiac arrest. 

She had always known she could only love a man with blood on his hands, stained the same deep crimson as her own. Hawkeye’s fingers had been too clean, bleached white in comparison to her.  
   
She hit ‘play’ again.

Hawkeye took another drink from his mug. “Tonight, I’m going to try to get her to explain what she did to you, though I think maybe I kinda sorta know. She needs to tell me though. She cried herself to sleep last night. And the night before. It’s twisting her up inside—she’s stuttering again, Nat. You know, that thing that happens when she’s terrified and lost in the memories of being brutalized and alone? Yeah, you did that to her.”

To his right, a shadow moved against the wall. Bobbi’s voice sounded though the speaker.

She sounded…pale. Exhausted. In more pain than she had sounded in when she woke up from being shot in the head. (1)

Black Widow’s heart—already clenched into a ball—scrunched up further, trying to hide itself away from the sound of Mockingbird’s voice. Mockingbird, who even in the bleakest, darkest moments of their lives as Avengers had sheer insouciant joy at the back of her throat. Mockingbird, who's voice had called more than one of them out of the darkness in the past, crying hope and life into the air as Steve cried strength, courage, honor. 

“Dinner’s rr-r-r-r-ready, sport. It’s not very good-d-d-d-d,” she said dully, walking into frame. She was dressed in jeans and a grey t shirt. She looked thin, fragile. Clint reached out and closed the hinge of the laptop, cutting off his recording.

Just before it shut, Natasha heard his answer.

“Like that matters. Love you, little bird.”

Love. Love was for children.

*****

_**The Red Room. Years ago.** _

_When the tall dark man, the man she knew now as “The Winter Soldier” returned to her, she was no longer a child._

_So of course she did not love him._

_Somehow, he looked exactly the same as the last day she saw him, down to his unkempt hair, long and dark. His wide face with those hooded eyes and sensual mouth was smooth and unlined. He had not aged a day. She suspected—given how much he hated the cold—that she knew why._

_She, on the other hand, was now a woman, a spy, a warrior. Calm, collected, controlled. Centered within herself._

_There were very few girls left, not just from her class but from all of them. Things had been done, knives and chemicals, pain and fear and feverish nightmare days of waiting to die. Only the very strongest survived and of all of them she was the preeminent student. The instructors called her alone “Black Widow” now, and set the others against her in cruel competition. She bested them all whether they came openly or in secret, with honest weapons or poison and garrotes. One by one they fell and faltered until the masters of the Red Room emptied the compound save for her._

_When it was clear she was the one their entire program had been striving for, **he** reappeared. At first he had been blank and confused, barely seeming to acknowledge her existence. As the days passed, the hours of sparring and shooting, of instruction in languages and history, diplomacy, psychology, geography, all of the thousands of things they deemed she needed to know he had warmed. His eyes lit from within again, a banked fire that drew her as moth to a lantern. _

_Most of the time he was coldly professional—he was her primary sparring partner and he could beat her unconscious more than once—sometimes the flame would flicker and the man who had saved her life as a child was there again._

_He asked her quietly one night if she still had his knife. His astonished joy when she produced it—and laid it against his throat in one motion—nearly unmade her._

_But she was no longer a child._

_She did not love him._

_They were sent out together, training. They spent nights camping in the wilderness without a fire, huddled together under thermal blankets, waiting for a certain target to pass them and be ‘tagged’. They spent days walking the streets of various cities, getting close enough to their targets to touch them without being marked. She was better at stealth and mis-direction; he had peerless aim and tactical instincts. They were clearly a powerful and effective team._

_The Winter Soldier reappearing in her life also served to block her official ‘handler’s increasingly invasive and aggressive attempts to drag her into his bed. Alexei Shostakov was tall, handsome, an accomplished fighter pilot and loyal son of Russia—he was known as the Red Guardian around the compound—and repellent to her. He’d first begun to make his advances on her when she was barely into her adult hood and she’d never forgotten it. She knew it was to be her official ‘cover’ within the USSR that she was his wife—so he could monitor her for the program—but she maneuvered her way out of any ceremony or co-habitation over and over._

_Now she had a buffer and a protector—when she needed it—and the relief was immense. In the time they spent together they, inevitably, started talking to each other. About things not covered in the mission. They spoke of their pasts, both drenched in blood and loss. He could remember little, just confused images of somewhere that did not seem to be Russia, of a war with archaic weapons. Of a golden haired man who seemed like a brother to him. In time, in private, he told her to call him ‘James’ rather than ‘Soldat’ as his handlers did._

_She sometimes spoke of Poppa Ivan and the happy time between being pulled from the burning rubble of her first home and coming to the Red Room. She told him how she had put his lessons to use over the years…and how she had improved on them. She started to win when they sparred, her speed and grace overcoming even his powerful frame and clock-work precision._

_They spoke in those few moments of privacy snatched between hours of training and testing and supervision, running on the tundra or sparring under the weak Siberian sun. In dingy rooms and dark hideaways._

_He was watching over her the first time she killed a man in the field. It was a mess and a murder and not what their orders had cleared them for. But the contact for the radical anti-Soviet faction she was sent to meet turned out to be a sexual predator. He attacked her, thinking she was just another victim he could use to while the time before his contact arrived. She broke his neck with a kick, then vomited on his corpse._

_James pulled her out then and there, without authorization, and set fire to the body on his way out._

_They tortured him for the disobedience, making her watch as they attached electrodes to his skull. She stood still and quiet, her face never changing from its expression of disdain. He had told her too, so that they would not hurt her as well. It nearly burned her soul to ashes but she found the strength to do it. She made herself a promise in return._

_That night she went to him for the first time, offering to him what he would never try to take himself. It was too short and more than a little awkward—he was embarrassed by his metal arm, as though it were some hideous defect and not a miracle._

_But it was sweet, and warm and it was life, life loving itself in the midst of death and pain. She came and went in the shadows and no one but they ever knew of it._

_She grew indifferent to death, building up a lethal callus as thick as the ridges of the scars on his shoulder. The time came when they would stand together on the sparring mats and there would be no way to tell who would come out victorious. He taught her to shoot like him—though she could never match his scores, he was peerless as a marksman._

_He taught her of more than death, mixing a few brief moments of joy and pleasure into their lives._

_But she did not love him._

_So when one day he was gone, without warning or farewell, of course it did not matter._

_She was no longer a child_

_She was the Black Widow._

*****  
**Avengers Tower, Present Day**

The video started up again in a few seconds, now with Clint shirtless. A shower was going in the background. The bed was even more rumpled and Natasha felt a little moment of happiness. Sex for the Bartons was like clean water—a necessity of life.

“So, okay. She explained to me what she thinks she did…and I guess. I get it. I get why you’re hurt and why you’re angry and why she’s killing herself over it. I get it. I’m sorry, Nat. I’m sorry they took him from you like that, mind and body and everything. God, I wish you’d SAID something to me. I’d have helped you find him, get him out.”

 _But I thought he was dead, until he put a bullet in me. And then I knew they’d made him forget me. And I was too weak to face that._ she whispered to herself.

“But me getting what happened and me saying what you did was okay? Not going to happen. You could have killed her Nat. I know that doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to…well…anyone else on the planet. But think about it for a minute, will’ya? You could have beaten my wife, our team mate, your friend to _death_.”

And Hawkeye started to cry, quietly.

Natasha broken heart turned to ash in her chest and started to leak into her blood stream, making her numb and dumb and lumpen.

One of the things she’d adored about Clint was that he was never afraid of his emotions. He didn’t always understand them but he showed them. He’d cry when he needed to, he’d shout when that was what was in him. He'd scream and wail and grieve and laugh and love with the same passion and unconcerned, unembarrassed honesty. 

It was incredibly attractive and undeniably masculine, even when it made him look weak. But then Clint had never been macho, never afraid he wasn’t really a man. He’d always been secure with that, in every sense of the word ‘man’. It made him the kind of guy who could capture and hold onto the heart of a woman like Bobbi, as damaged and frightened and powerful and brilliant and reckless and strong as Mockingbird was.

It made him the man she’d turned to when she though the only person she’d ever not-loved was dead and buried. It made him her best friend, her partner, her savior.

And now he was crying because of her. Natasha had not realized her body could hold that much grief without bursting into flames. 

“So, now I’m all torn up too, right? I want to be there for you but I’m so fucking angry at you. And I can’t leave her, I can’t. Not for anything. She’s my life Nat. She’s my soul. But you’re still my best friend and this is tearing me up inside.”

He wiped his eyes as the sound of the shower stopped. 

“I’ll send another message when I have something new to say. Until then, I’m just going to try to be a good husband, even if I’m a lousy friend. You did a horrible fucking thing Nat…and I wish I was there to help you through it. Damn you.”

The message ended and the screen went dark.

For a long time Natasha sat in the gloom, feeling as cold as she had back in Siberia.

It had been easier then. When she had not loved.

 


	4. Live, My Dear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mockingverse version of how Black Widow left the Red Room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay, folks. Life, Luke Cage and sickness got in the way. 
> 
> Next chapter should be much sooner on delivery
> 
> As usual, none of this would be possible without the support of angelt626

It was, of all people, Sam who came to pull her out of her room. She was up and walking around and drinking smokey black Russian tea ( _that Clint and Bobbi had bought her for Christmas_ ) with condensed milk. It was the first thing she’d ingested for at least a day.

She glared at him as he sauntered into her kitchen. He was a different type than the other male Avengers, neither hyper-muscled nor small and compact. He was lean and strong looking, like the bird of prey who’s name he bore.. “I did not let you in,” she managed. She didn’t throw the knife she’d pulled from under the counter because hadn’t she done enough harm to the team?

“Stark did. Then he ran for it. Literally ran, down the stairs. Screaming ‘I was never here’,” Sam said with a grin. “Anyway, the…Bucky wanted to come but Steve talked him out of it. I think he knew you’d just spend the next four hours staring longingly at each other.”

Despite everything, Natasha smiled. It was an apt description of her relationship with James.

She shook her head. “The…Bartons…their romance is an X-Rated action movie, all explosions and sex scenes. James and myself? Russian art film. Long lingering shots of snow covered hills and angst filled gazes across barren rooms.”

Sam sat down at the breakfast bar. “So, it’s true. You knew him before?”

She wanted to lie. She needed to lie. The Red Room had taught her that the truth was a weapon of her enemies. But these people, this man? He was not her enemy.

“Yes,” she said, then nervously stood up and fetched another small porcelain cup, poured Sam a cup of tea. “I swear I didn’t know he was James Buchanan Barnes until Steve said his name in that armored car. I knew him as ‘The Winter Soldier’, later as James. I should have recognized him from the Howling Commandos but…he looked so different when I knew him. And I tried so hard to forget him. I thought he was dead for so long. Then I though he was lost to me, forever.” She gulped the now tepid liquid in her cup, then continued. “He helped train me…he saved my life. More than once. He pushed me to free myself from the Red Room and he sacrificed himself to make sure I would get away.”

She looked away from Falcon’s cool, searching gaze, letting herself fall backwards to the last mission she had undertaken, before her world changed forever…

*****

_**Minsk, Belarus — years ago** _

_He was showering when she opened the window to his room, perched on the tiny guano covered ledge outside the hotel as though it were a sidewalk. She rested one foot on the wooden floor of the rented apartment, scanned the immediate area for the booby traps she would have left. Nothing._

_But of course. It was true to the breathtaking arrogance and confidence he’d always shown. He expected to be able to fight his way out of anything. Well, he wasn’t going to fight his way out of this._

_She slid into the steamy bathroom, much larger and better appointed than she would have expected. There was the gleam of his metal arm in the mist. She dropped into a fighting crouch sliding on silent feet towards her target…_

_The dark-haired man spun on his heel and snatched her into his arms, pulling her under the drenching spray of the shower._

_“Trying to sneak up on me? Not even you’re that good, Natalia,” he hissed into her ear._

_She punched him in the chest, feeling the hard muscle barely react. “Speak English, I need the practice.”_

_For a long moment he pulled back and looked at her, his hair plastered to his skull. She wanted to brush it back from his cheeks and kiss the spot under his ear that would be revealed._

_His dark eyes gleamed._

_“All right then,” he said in English. “Let’s practice.”_

_With his metal hand he spun the water off, leaving them in sudden quiet, only the water dripping off of both of them breaking the silence._

_He leaned in and kissed her. His lips were full and warm, sensitive and sensual. He nipped at her bottom lip, very gently, then slide his tongue over the place he’d bitten. She responded by digging her fingers into his shoulder blade and tilting back her head. He trailed his mouth down her chin and onto her throat, pausing to suck on the skin just at the point where it touched her collar bone._

_His artificial hand trailed up her back until it found the zipper of her body suit, began pulling it down inch by inch, stopping to stroke her spine with the warm wet metal as he slowly stripped it from her body._

_He had little sensation in the arm, though having any at all was something astonishing. He had learned to control the pressure and sensitivity by long arduous effort. By now, he knew he could use the smooth unyielding surface as another texture for her to enjoy, against the coarse dark hair of his body, the ridges of his scars, the peach-like texture of his mouth._

_He seemed, even now after so many (and yet too few) assignations like this, astonished by her body. Astonished by her enjoyment of his, her fierce yet gentle passion. They were both nearly tentative with each other, as though making up for the pain and abuse and suffering of their lives. Here, now, together there would be nothing but sweet, soft, warm, pleasure._

_He peeled down the zipper by the millimeter, trying to drive her mad with waiting, wanting to puncture that cool reserve a little early this night._

_She responded by slowly kissing her way from his chest to his chin, then settling in against his lips, nipping and licking, little stings like bug bites in his skin._

_It was he who broke first, dragging the fastener all the way open, peeling the sopping fabric from her body to slap onto the floor of the shower. He pulled back from her far enough to look down at the glory of her naked skin. She was small and compact, with the willowy grace and smooth curves of her cover occupation, prima ballerina. Under that sweet pale expanse layered hard muscle and a harder will, like diamond and steel. She was so much stronger than he had ever been, for she had to be conscious during the months and years they were apart. He slept in the cold--they said he should not dream and yet he did. He dreamed of two people, a big blond man who was also a fragile blond boy and he dreamed of her, of his milli moy, his dancer, his beloved flame._

_She smiled at him, carefree and open as she could not be with anyone else, her eyes dancing. She could show him her playful spirit, her bright fierce heart. Spinning from his arms, naked, supple and perfectly controlled she twirled on the tile, almost en pointe and that was incredibly impressive. He laughed and slid after her, unable to match her lithe elegance. He never tried. He was power and persistence; she was cleverness and poise. They were a good team--so good that no matter how much their masters hated their closeness no one could find anyone to match their efficiency._

_They had no illusions the Red Room and its allies were fooled by their complicated charade of indifference. As long as they were discreet and did nothing to openly humiliate the Red Guardian--still unpleasantly persistent in his frutless pursuit of Natalia--they were allowed to have their little assignations. That their love could be used as a weapon against them both hovered always above their heads._

_He could not have stayed away from her with a gun pointed at his head and she would have danced through the flames of hell to be with him._

_These months had been different: other than being sent out on a few fruitless missions, long nights in the cold and dark with no result, they had been left alone. He had settled into this apartment, solitary by nature (had he always been? He...didn't remember...a time he had been gregarious, popular. Not this quiet creature of cold and death.) She was dancing with the local ballet, on and off, pretending to be on a rest cure for 'nervous complaints'. Most nights they were together, the longest stretch of peace and pleasure they had ever known in their lives._

_He wanted it to go on forever. Oh. That was a new thought, utterly new, beyond anything that the Winter Soldier should be able to think._

_She stopped prancing naked past his ratty furniture, filling the room with warmth and fire, and stared at him, sensing the sudden change in his mood. "James? What's wrong?"_

_He shook it off, smiling at her, scooping her back into his embrace, reveling in the smooth heat of her skin against his._

_"Nothing, Milli Moy. I am merely overcome with your beauty," he said into her hair, smelling of soap and rose oil._

_She laughed, low and smoky and pulled him closer, her hands on his hips. "You are a terrible liar. You should be punished for it."_

_His jerked against her, his erection reacting to her words as much as her body. “I beg you to correct me,” he whispered._

_She spun from his embrace, snatched up a belt he had draped over a chair, spun back and gathered his hands into hers. Encircling him with her arms she wrapped the belt around his wrists, pinning them in the small of his back. She laughed and butted him in the chest. He fell backwards, turning to take the weight of his body on his metal arm. She followed, her hands on his hips, burning him like a brand. Her teeth explored his throat, tracking upwards to bite and pull at his bottom lip._

_She fit in his lap like they were two pieces of a puzzle. He arched back, feeling the mattress creak and give under his metal arm. She rode him like a wave, letting her thighs meet the hard bare muscle of his stomach._

_He moaned, drowning in the scent of her skin, blood, flowers, sweat, snow. She was ice and fire, death and life, his dear, his beloved. He wanted nothing more than to worship at her feet._

_“We should leave. You and I. Just run,” he said…did he say it out loud or just think it?_

_She pulled back, staring at him. Her eyes were wide but hooded, shadowed. “I cannot imagine…”_

_“I can. I can imagine for both of us,” he hissed._

_She narrowed her eyes and leaned in till he could taste her breath against his tongue. “Now is not the time for treasonous talk. Now is the time for you to take your punishment like a man.”_

_She tormented him for the rest of the night, with her hands and mouth and body. Through the pleasure and pain, the Winter Soldier exalted._

_For the first time she had not reacted to his suggestion that they flee together with fear and denial._

_*****_

_The next morning she was gone from his bed, as well as some of his dry clothes and her wet body suit. He was lying on the rumpled sheets, the room still smelling pleasantly of sweat and sex when his phone rang. He scooped the handset from the cradle and barked into it. “Here.”_

_“Soldat, you have a mission,” rumbled the voice of his handler on the other end._

_“I am ready to comply,” he responded instantly. He memorized the address he was given and slid out of the bed. He stepped on the buckle of the belt she had used to bind his hands, the leather now stretched, the metal snapped and jagged. He tucked it into the pocket of his tactical pants, listening with pleasure to the clink of the metal against his prosthetic._

_Six blocks away, their target had final shown up, a traitor named Ivanovich—or so they were told. He did not care. He was a gun and an arm. He was death striking from a distance, unseen and unheard. She would be down on the ground, somewhere near by, in case he could not take the shot._

_They had both become aware lately that the Red Room and the…organization that ran him were not quite the same. Allies, yes, but increasingly uncertain ones. There was some strange power struggle going on behind the scenes and both pet killers, the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow, were being drawn into it._

_Perhaps that was why she was finally willing to run with him. It was clear she did not serve “Mother Russia” any longer, any more than he did. Whatever tiny idealized expression of the Black Widow as a Soviet hero they had indoctrinated into her had faded._

_He had no such blanket of faith to cover anything he had done. He was a leashed dog, sent out to tear throats and bay at the moon before being locked in his kennel once more._

_**You’re my friend, Buck. I’m with you to the end of the line.** _

_He grunted, his breath puffing out in mental pain that became physical. That voice in his head. It was when he started hearing that voice that they sent him back to the ice again._

_He would not go back to the ice. He would die first._

_The decision solidified in his head and he nodded. They would run. Together. Their lives would be hard and probably short but they would own themselves, fully._

_The Winter Soldier settled himself into his sniper’s position, trained his sites on the target’s door and waited, still and cold, like a frozen statue._

_The door of the old mansion creaked open just as a black car pulled up out front. The rabbit was creeping from its burrow._

_He breathed out, emptying his lungs, letting his finger drift onto the trigger. The target emerged into the weak sunlight, looking down the steps. The Winter Soldier centered on his chest, looking not at the target but the front site of his rifle._

_“Pappa!” Screamed a young girl’s voice and in the instant he squeezed the trigger a little form appeared in his field of view, a girl in a blue dress with dark hair._

_“Shit!” He exclaimed and jerked the gun hard, throwing the aim off just enough that he didn’t put a bullet into the back of her head. A spray of blood appeared on the stone wall behind the Ivanovich, who yelled in shock and pain. The girl screamed and then in a confused scramble Ivanovich grabbed her hand and careened down the stairs, into a nearby alley. The rabbit was running._

_The Winter Soldier vaulted off the roof top, taking the six story drop like stepping off a foot stool. He landed in the street next to the black car in time to punch a big man in a black coat in the face. The other bodyguard went down in the corner of his vision. A flash of red hair._

_“Get the girl away from this,” he snarled at Black Widow and took off down the alley after their target, his brain numb with shock and anger. He felt her following him, close as a shadow._

_If they’d told him Ivanovich was meeting his daughter…he’d have picked a different method, gone into the house and killed him fast and silent, absconded with the body._

_But why would they care? They would have expected him to kill the girl too, without hesitating. He’d done worse in the past at their behest._

_He’d shown his hand, then. They would know he should go back to the ice._

_Not again. He would not leave Milli Moy again. Not again. He would die first._

_The man was desperate and stupid and he ran into a blind alley, hauling his terrified child with him. When he turned to face the two predators pursuing them his face was twisted into something no longer human. He screamed imprecations at them in Russian and other languages. The Winter Solider pulled a knife from his sleeve._

_“Get her out,” he hissed to Black Widow, who darted forward and snatched the child from the man’s arms. She turned and ran from the alley._

_Winter Soldier silenced the screaming with a single sharp slice, letting the blood run down his metal hand where he could not feel it fully. His heart already encased in ice._

_They would have to run now, right now. Just leave the child and run…_

_He emerged from the mouth of the alley._

_Black Widow was surrounded by soldiers. No, she was pointing at him, and speaking softly to his handler. Her hand held the terrified child in a death grip._

_The Winter Soldier stared at her, numb, as they handcuffed him and threw him in the back of a van._

_They emerged hours later at an isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. They dragged him from the van as though he were made of lava, not even wanting to touch him. He caught a glimpse of red hair like fire stalking into the front door, still dragging the child._

_Perhaps she was still loyal to Mother Russia after all. It was no more than he deserved._

_In the main room of the house, all bare wooden floors and swinging bare light bulbs, stood not just his handler—a spare older man who always wore civilians clothes but was obeyed as though he were a general—but both of hers as well._

_The Red Guardian wore his pilot’s uniform, crisp and neat, and his face when he saw the Winter Soldier spoke of a painful death. He was accompanied by a woman of middle years, tall, blond in that icy Russian way. Natalia stood close to them, her face closed and hard._

_They dragged him into the middle of the room, and threw him to his knees. There were at least a dozen thugs behind him, from the noises._

_He felt strangely relaxed. It all made sense now. The world made sense._

_Then Natalia glanced in his direction and he saw what was happening._

_“Soldat. Why didn’t you take the shot, as you were directed?”_

_“You didn’t give the full intell. I was surprised. As will happen when the powers that be forget that a soldier needs briefing,” he said in crisp Russian._

_“You have been surprised in the past and it has not effected your performance,” his handler said. “We are concerned that you are…distracted.”_

_“By what?” He said with a snort._

_“By many things, Soldat.” And he looked deliberately at Natalia._

_The Black Widow tossed her head. “Oh, please. I did my duty as I was directed. You cannot put your operative’s erratic behavior on me. He is weak-minded at best.” She casually shoved the now frozen in fear child towards the door to the kitchen. “You should have told him about the girl. Now, I say we make him dig her grave.”_

_She was completely convincing. She nearly convinced him. He actually saw the tension go out of Red Guardian’s shoulders at her total disdain for him._

_Oh, she was the best. She might actually get them out of this. Clearly they had been more worried about him than he thought. Perhaps he had not even been meant to live through this mission. She was saving his life with every heartbeat, with every scornful word._

_“You get the shovel for me, Widow” he said with a snort._

_In English._

_They might have gotten out of this alive but for that, seven little words in a language he wasn’t supposed to be able to speak anymore._

_The difference between them both and the rest of the room—all trained soldiers and killers themselves—was apparent in the next few seconds._

_The Winter Soldier rose to his feet, snapping the cuffs on his wrists as easily as he had broken the belt Natalia had bound him with. They had taken his guns and knives but no one could take the other gifts they had given him without taking his life. He trusted her to have his back so he turned and put his metal hand around the throat of the nearest guard, hauling him off his feet and hurling him into at least three others, who went down like bowling pins._

_He heard the pale woman scream behind him, then the sound of a big body hitting the floor. He surged forward, counting twelve more men still standing, pulling out guns and other weapons._

_The first shots he caught on his metal hand and arm—he wasn’t bullet proof otherwise—and then he was among them. Hand to hand, they could not stand against the Winter Soldier. He hammered them all into the ground, into walls, **through** walls, taking only superficial bruises, a few cuts. She joined him after a few moments and within mere moments, the room was full of nothing but broken, bleeding bodies._

_He looked at her and realized she was smiling. Then he felt the same expression on his face._

_Despite this disaster, this ruin, he was happy. The last decision was made._

_“So, milli moy? We run?”_

_“We run, James. But we take the girl. I know of a family we can leave her with,” she said, hopping over Red Guardian’s prone, bleeding form._

_Perhaps the Winter Soldier kicked Shostakov in the head on his way past as well._

_They went to Paris._

_The girl they had left with a family in Warsaw, shocked and silent and broken, but alive. For a whole week, they were alone together, no responsibilities, no one hunting them, telling them what to do, what to say, who to kill._

_One glorious week of nothing but laughter and joy. He started, even in that short time, to remember things from his past. He told her about a city that never slept, of sandlot baseball games and slight young man, golden hair and sensitive eyes, stronger on the inside than his frail body could support._

_She called him James and dressed in bright colors, diaphanous fabrics that danced around her as she danced for him in the night. He had the time to worship her as he had always longed to do and grew drunk with pleasure._

_On the eighth day, the hunters came._

_They died. But more came after. The longest they had without a hunting team trailing behind them was two weeks. They started to attract more attention and soon it wasn’t just the Red Room and…whomever ran the Winter Soldier after them._

_In Madrid it all came to a head._

_They had taken a top floor apartment on the out skirts of the city, in a building otherwise abandoned, and settled in to wait. After the debacle in Tangiers they were both tired and bleakly aware they couldn’t run much longer. But they had taken what they could, in the time they had and while it would never be enough…it was enough._

_James was brushing her hair, his shirt still crumpled on the floor by the bed, when they kicked in the door on the bottom floor. They heard the claymore directional mines he had set up go off in sequence._

_So, that would take care of the first wave. They had maybe twenty minutes._

_He kissed the back of her neck gently, feeling his lips brush against the bandages still nestled at the crook of her throat and her shoulder. The last man standing in Tangiers had actually gotten a knife in her throat before she had taken it away and gutted him. That was when they realized they were both too tired, too worn out to continue._

_This was the last stand of the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier._

_“Who do you think it is this time?” She smiled as she asked him, her nimble delicate fingers slotting bullets into her guns with calm precision._

_He glanced over at the monitor showing the main entrance. The bodies scattered on the floor were in nondescript military gear but they were carrying Russian_

_“It’s my people. But I’m sure they’re dragging the Red Room with them.”_

_“I wonder who that third party is. The one from Cairo.” She mused._

_“I only saw one person, on that roof, from a distance, so…I don’t know, milli moy. Does it matter? They come, we kill them until we can’t kill them anymore,” he said, kneeling down to pick up his rifle from where it lay at her feet. On his way back up she pulled him into her, skin to skin, warm and alive._

_So far from the ice. Far enough to feel human again._

_He leaned his head into hers and smiled. “I will take my proper place on the roof. I’ll be back down when they finally get smart.”_

_From his sniper’s roost he took out most of the second wave. While his hands and eyes and lungs found his targets, his mind wandered. Not to that city where he remembered…not being the Winter Soldier. Not even to the blond boy who was his not-brother. His mind played back every moment he’d had with the woman made of fire sitting downstairs, preparing to die with him when the odds got too great._

_Her courage and strength had impressed him when she was a child; her beauty, poise and skill had captivated him as an adult. Every moment between them had left him richer, smarter, calmer. More centered and more himself, even if he didn’t quite know who that man was yet._

_He didn’t want to die but more he didn’t want her to die. He wanted her to go on forever. If she went on, she would take with her the best of him, the part of his mind that remembered when he wasn’t a killer. When he was more than a soldier._

_They got smart, eventually, running an armored car right up to the entrance of the building and using it for cover. He shouldered his rifle and slid backwards to the trap door._

_A bullet pinged against the ground near his head—they had a sniper of their own. Whomever it was had been waiting for him to move out of cover._

_He was about to die._

_He heard, far away, a sharp buzz, not quite like anything he’d heard before._

_There was no second shot._

_Strange._

_Without pausing any longer, he surged to his feet and dove through the trapdoor, ending up in a crouch in the main hallway of the tip floor._

_A grenade arced up the stairwell in front of him._

_He threw himself through the door to their apartment, rolling on the hard wooden floor. The concussion behind him was loud, spraying dust, debris and wood splinter through the air. He rolled onto his back, the rifle a painful lumpy mess against his spine._

_The first man through the door jerked in mid step and fell backwards, prone, with a knife standing proud from his eye, the only place the ballistic mask didn’t cover. Natalia stepped up delicately and kicked the second man in the chest, sending him flying. She shot three more in the eyes, her precision as awe inspiring as ever. For a moment, the narrow corridor was clogged by their bodies. She tossed her own grenade over their heads and walked calmly back to James, helping him to his feet. They strolled together into the bedroom as the explosion was echoed by the sounds of screams._

_A fourth wave would be needed._

_James looked out the window and spotted several more armored cars speeding in their direction. As the men inside boiled out in front of their building, he recognized two of them. They were his handler and the man in the Russian uniform who he always saw when he first woke in the cold. The one who could make him…_

_“Milli moy, Natalia, my love. My treasure. They are here for me.” He looked at her where she was reloading, slotting new knives into her tactical suit._

_“And that matters why? They will have to go through me to get to you,” she said, smiling. She smiled all the time now, as a woman, when as a child she had never smiled even once. If he had done any good in the world it was contained in her smile._

_“So, let them have me. I will lead them on a merry chase, away from here. Away from you.”_

_“No,” she laughed at him. “Don’t be silly, James.”_

_“Milli Moy, think. The best we can hope for here is death. The best. What happens if they take us alive?”_

_She winced, seeing that future too well. One of them tormented to hurt the other. A long slow death._

_She held up one of her guns. “I can take that from their hands. One bullet for each of us, here and now.” She was not sad or angry, but nearly giddy. It was freedom, having nothing left to lose._

_“It might take more than one to kill me,” he said, laughing himself._

_“I can make it count,” she said, serious suddenly._

_“I know you can, and I love you for it.” He took her into his arms, breathing deep the scent of her hair, the perfume of her skin. “Run, my love. My fire. My dear. Run. Live. Remember me. I will not let them take me alive. But as long as you live, so does James.”_

_“No. I will…I will go back to the Red Room. I will bend the knee. I will be the Red Guardian’s good little whore. As long as they leave you alive, I will do whatever they say. James, for you I will be anything they need.” Her face was set, cold._

_He hated it when she was cold. She should be fire. He shook his head_

_“No. You are the Black Widow. You are no man’s toy.”_

_“If that is true, then not even you can order me around.”_

_“I would not dream of offering you such insult.” He knelt in front of her, holding her hands in his. “I am begging you, my dear. Run. Live. For me, if not for yourself.”_

_They kissed then and it was not long enough but forever would have been to short. Somehow, she found herself outside on the fire escape, leaping from level to level as he drew the fire of the men attacking them on the far side of the building._

_She ran, weeping, through the alleys around the building, devoid of people or authorities—because of course they would have been paid off or scared off—listening for the moment the gunfire ended. It came all too soon and she found herself clutching her chest, braced against a wall, listening for the moment the man she loved died._

_The single shot ran louder than anything she’d ever heard, louder than her own heart. She heard a woman scream, high and shrill and realized it was herself._

_Then the Black Widow came to her and she was up again, walking with calm determination towards the city centre. She had caches of money and weapons, passports and ID in many forms. Some of them had his face on them. She should throw them away. She wouldn’t._

_She was nearly at the city center when she realized she was being followed. A single assassin, a man, moving with amazing skill through the crowds. If he hadn’t been white and not Hispanic she might not have noticed him. Only the Red Room would be so myopic and so skilled._

_She turned down an alley that would lead to the back entrance of the warehouse where she had her stash, then turned and waited just past a T-junction._

_He walked boldly into her view. He wasn’t anyone she knew._

_Tall, though not overly so, he moved like an athlete and a fighter. He was carrying something thin and black in one hand, about the length of his forearm, but not a gun. His sandy blond hair was cut haphazardly short. He had a round face with a pug nose and a mouth the looked permanently quirked into a smile._

_He looked…kind. Friendly._

_She drew a bead on him and pulled the trigger._

_He took the shot in the shoulder, staggered back. No blood. The momentum of the bullet spun him around and two thoughts went through her head._

_He was wearing **very good** body armor…and the thing in his hand was a bow._

_The next second she was pinned the to brick wall by two arrows, each placed neatly through the sleeves of her jacket._

*****

Natasha shook her head and smiled at Sam. “Where is everyone?”

“Down in the common area, having a…meet and greet? I guess. With your frozen boyfriend,” Sam replied. He shrugged at the look on her face. “The dude wrecked my wings, Nat. I’m not his biggest fan.”

“Well, he shot me and you don’t see me holding a grudge,” she snorted.

“Tell that to Bobbi,” Sam said carefully.

She nodded. “I deserved that. Let’s go…meet people.”

In the living room, Thor was holding forth in some exuberant story about hunting monsters in Asgard. As they exited the elevator she heard a sound that made her heart stop.

James was laughing.

The group of men gathered on the sofas and chairs all turned and looked at Sam and Natasha as they walked towards them.

James—Bucky—leapt to his feet. He made an abortive motion towards her, his eyes huge and soulful.

She made a decision, suddenly and completely. Rather than playing it cool, sitting down in her usual spot on the other side of the room, she walked directly to him and wrapped her arms around him. 

An invisible tension drained out of his body and he embraced her back. Over his shoulder, Steve was grinning like a jack’o’lantern. Tony and Thor both made whooping noises

“Where’s Sharon?” Natasha asked, her cheek against James’ shoulder. 

“She does still have a job in Boston, Nat,” Steve said. 

She sat down, pulling James with her. “Well. How is everyone getting along?”

“Fine, but I have to keep dumbing down my witty banter for the two old guys here,” Tony said in a mock-irritated voice.

“Mostly we’ve been filling Bucky in on what’s happened since he dragged Steve out of the Potomac,” Bruce added. 

“You all live very strange lives, milli moy,” James said over her head.

“Hell, you haven't even heard the good stuff,” Sam snorted. “Not with the Bartons outta town.” 

“And who’s fault is that?” Tony said with something not spitting distance from asperity.

Bucky’s arm tightened around her shoulders and when she looked up he was getting that mulish set to his jaw.

Steve raised his hand. “Let it be, Tony.”

“With all due respect, old man, no.”

The atmosphere in the room went tense. Bruce and Thor exchanged an apprehensive look. Sam sat up straight. Steve looked…worried.

Natasha pushed off from James a little and leaned forward. “Say it Tony. Whatever you want to say. I deserve to hear it.”

“Sure. So, are you totally out of your god damn mind? Bobbi’s not a week from saving the whole world and you try to turn her into hamburger? Why?” Stark was terrible at hiding his emotions on a good day and today he wasn’t even trying. He was mad as hell, under the snarky humor. 

Natasha looked at him, then scanned the faces of the others. Bruce looked scared. Thor looked interested. Sam was blank. Steve had drifted to sad and thoughtful.

Bucky was ready to leap to her defense. As she expected. She shook her head at him. 

“I’m not going to tell you anything specific until I talk to her, but…think about it like this. What if Pepper suddenly disappeared and you found out later that Bobbi—that any one of us—knew she was going to take off and just…let her? Wouldn’t that be unforgivable?” 

“Yeah, it would be. Unforgivable.” Tony nodded, then leaned forward even further, till he was half way across the coffee table between them. His dark eyes, never less than lively, were on fire. “And you know what? You need to forgive her anyway.”

He stood up, gesticulating wildly as he paced. “The guy sitting next to you _shot Steve_ Nat. He shot you. And you seem to be okay with that.” 

Bucky jerked against her, ducking his head into her hair.

“Sorry, sorry, ice man. I’m not trying to come at you here. You seem to be an okay guy, despite the slushee Hydra turned your brain into,” Tony said in apology. “I used to run guns, Nat. How many deaths are on me? Bruce wrecked Harlem, Thor’s not just the God of Thunder, he’s also the God of War, right? You and Clint were professional killers. Sam, Steve, Buckminster Fuller there? Soldiers. In the middle of some pretty serious wars.”

She sat back, staring at him, her mouth open.

“Bobbi,” he continued, ”almost helped Hydra recreate the Super Soldier serum. AND she was black ops too. We’ve all done bad things, terrible things. We’re all—well, okay, not you Thor—criminals to someone. Does that mean were not heroes to everyone else? It’s written on the business cards, it must be true.”

He thumped back down and gestured around the room. “She was what? Two days from thinking we were all dead? She was _suicidal_ , out of her god damn mind. She wasn’t thinking straight and even if she was? What she did to you and Steve? Okay, it was unforgivable. Consider it a down payment on the next time _you_ do something unforgivable. Cause you’re going to and we all know it.” He sat back, then shook his head. “Well, maybe not you Steve. But you have to forgive her or the universe will implode.”

“I do forgive her. I’m still mad as heck, but I forgive her. I just want to hear her say she’s sorry is all,” Steve said softly.

Natasha was staring at Tony, her mouth open. She looked at Sam. “Someone call Professor Xavier. We need to figure out who’s controlling Stark’s mind. No way he thought of all that grownup stuff by himself.”

Tony flipped her the bird amidst a wave of tension releasing laughter. 

Deliberately Natasha pulled out her Starkphone and sent a text.

Within seconds, her incoming message noise sounded. An address appeared on the screen. She showed it to Steve.

“South Carolina, huh? We can make that in eleven hours, driving.”

“Oh, goody,” Bucky said in a pleased voice. “Road Trip!”


	5. When Hawkeye Met Black Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of our little tale, with bonus Hawkeye and Black Widow first meeting.
> 
> Welcome to the Mockingverse, new believers. I hope you enjoyed this story. There is a rich and varied world behind it all, featuring my precious Bobbi and adored Clint.
> 
> These are the stories I wanted to read about Mockingbird, so neglected and abused by the Marvel universe, so I told them myself. I hope you'll take a look at the rest
> 
> (Note: the recently canceled Mockingbird series by Chelsea Cain is deeply compatible with my stories, in tone and attitude and love for Bobbi. You shoulda read it when it was running and you should go buy the collected trade when it's out. It's brilliant.)

Clint rolled over and stared in confusion—yet again—at the wood of the canopy above him. Right, rental house in South Carolina. Not the Nest. Bobbi’s three quarters of the bed, the woman could _sprawl_ , was still a little warm so she’d only been up for a while. It was…he squinted at the quaint analog clock on the far wall..hmph..past noon.

They’d had a late night. A wonderful late night. She’d seemed so much calmer the last few days, after telling him why she thought Natasha was furious at her. He’d agreed she’d fucked up really badly. Then he’d just let it drop. He’d tell her about the messages to Nat sometime, not right away. But those had let him let off enough steam not to get in her face to beg forgiveness.

Which had been the right decision, it seemed. He was an emotional fuck up on a grand scale but he knew her so well by now that he was able to make good decisions when it came to her. That made him damn proud. 

He’d been rewarded last night after dinner. She’d made shrimp and grits with salad. They’d drunk red wine and watched “Dog Cops” on streaming. It had been lovely and peaceful and calm. 

She’d been curled up against his side like a kitten, the warm solid weight of her making him feel like a man, like a husband. As they’d ended the second season she’d reached out and placed her hand on his, stopping him from hitting play on the next episode.

He looked at her sideways, grinning. She looked away, shy. Bobbi being shy meant one thing and he was already doing mental backflips about it he was so happy.

“Clint,” she said and then stopped, ducking her chin.

“Hmm, little bird?” He murmured. “What?”

“Will you…”

“Yes?”

“Will you…make love to me tonight?’ When she said it like that, all sweet and soft and tentative she meant ‘Will you worship me? Will you take any effort away from me and give me a night of nothing but pleasure?’.

He snickered and tucked his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up to him. “Why do you always ask that like _I’d_ be doing _you_ a favor? You know I live for you saying that. Every damn night wouldn’t be enough for me.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes and just shook her head a little. He leaned down and kissed her, firm and strong, getting his feet under him. 

Bobbi threw her legs over his thighs and scooted into him so he could stand up in one motion. He cradled her against his chest like a romance novel cover, and ran up the stairs to the bedroom.

It took him nearly an hour to get her clothes off, as every inch of bare skin was a new invitation to kiss and lick and nuzzle part of her. When he was finally done he tucked her under the thick comforter—the heating was on but the air in the room was chilly in the late winter. He shucked out of his own clothes quickly, his eyes never leaving hers, then clicked off the lights.

He loved looking at her as much as she loved looking at him but sometimes—when she said those wonderful words—all he wanted was touch, her skin like velvet under his scarred and callused fingers. The sound of her breath catching in surprised joy. The scent of her skin, hot under the down blanket, heavy with musk. The taste of her on his tongue, salt and sweet, rich as caramel. 

It was a long, long process, making her feel loved. He enjoyed every second of it.

So now, in the…okay, afternoon, he slid out of bed, into sweatpants and padded downstairs, shirtless.

As he entered the kitchen he realized Bobbi wasn’t alone.

The woman who’d rented them the house—she lived on the next lot over—and her adult daughter were drinking coffee and chatting with his wife. All three women turned to stare at him.

Deciding it was better to move forward then break and run he smiled in greeting and walked over to wrap Bobbi in his arms, holding her against his chest like a shield.

The daughter—had he ever heard her name?—had a glazed expression on her face. Her mother, Emma, was just smiling in a sly, knowing way. She was tall, taller than Bobbi and her skin was deep brown. She could have been T’Challa or Luke Cage’s mother or aunt, her skin lined and wrinkled but her carriage regal. 

“Looking well, Mr. Barton,” she said in a lively tone. 

He sighed into his wife’s hair. “Well, we had a good night.”

Bobbi elbowed him in the ribs lightly, turning to kiss his bicep. Then she addressed the other women again. 

“Thank you for the food, Emma, Isabella. I’m not sure how long they’ll be staying but at least the night. I think we’ll probably keep the house the full month though. Even if we leave a little early, we’ll pay for that.”

“You’ve been more than generous, coming into the place in the off season. If you need any more linens or firewood, you just call.” 

“We will,” Bobbi said with a smile.

The women took their leave, the daughter actually walking backwards a few steps to stare at Clint.

Bobbi laughed at him as they re-entered the kitchen. “It’s the abs, sport. Don’t know a straight woman, gay man or bi anything that isn’t struck dumb by those beautiful things.”

“Little bird, fess up. Who’s visiting?” He said as they walked back into the kitchen, snatching the carafe from the coffee pot and drinking it dry.

She shoved her phone at him. A text exchange with Natasha was displayed on the front. 

**Nat: If you’re willing to talk, I’m willing to listen**

Bobbi: _their address in South Carolina_ Bring the boys.

“Hmph,” Clint said, then really looked around the kitchen for the first time. There were foil covered casserole dishes on every surface. He pried up the edges of a few, smelling peanut stew, warm cooked rice with vegetables. Corn and shrimp in rich broth, okra and sausage. 

“Do you think it’s enough food?” she said in a worried voice. “For two super soldiers?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s enough for a battalion of them…hang on, this was sent…like two days ago?”

“Well, yeah. They would have left in the morning at best. It’s an eleven hour drive but…with traffic? I figured she’d text when they were close and I was right.”

Clint flicked downwards on the message log.

Nat: _They stopped at every pancake house on the way. This is hell. Three hours._

That had been two hours ago.

“Bobbi. What are you going to say to them?”

She looked at him, his wife, the other half of his soul, the human he knew best in the whole universe. She was everything to him. She was peace. Love. Pleasure. Joy. Safety. She was the only thing he’d give up being Hawkeye for…because she would never ask him to give it up. 

She opened her hand in a gesture of release , her eyes soft and sad. “The truth. I mean, it’s not like it’s a revelation, how much of a hero I’m not, right?”

He tucked her into his arms, breathing deep the scent of her hair, her skin, of the indefinable presence of Bobbi, who made him complete. 

He’d thought that person was Natasha once. And Nat did bring so much to his life that he could never discount his feelings for her. But he knew now the answer to the question he’d never wanted anyone to ask. 

If circumstances made him chose between Bobbi and Nat, he’d pick Bobbi.

“Did you ever meet him? Barnes? The Winter Soldier?” She asked him from the safety of his embrace, her big strong body so solid and warm when he held her.

“Hmm? No, never ran into him in the field to meet. But I saved his life once.”

*****

_**Madrid, years ago** _

_Clint cursed again. Weeks he’d been tracking the Black Widow and whomever her partner/lover/companion was. Weeks of looking for the moment to take his shot, as he’d been ordered to by Fury._

_Every time these other groups got in his way, muddied the water, put his cover in jeopardy. So he’d had to hold off and hold off, wondering if they were going to take the problem out of his hands…he’s have been okay with that. He hated this part of his ‘job’._

_Waiting had the unintended consequence of giving him time to study her, the slim fragile looking red-head who all the intell they’d shown him and the evidence of his own eyes said was one of the deadliest people on the planet._

_‘A stone-cold killer,’ Fury’d said. ‘Ruthless. Heartless. And right now drawing so much fire from every side a public menace wherever she goes. Whatever this internal cat fight is about, I don’t care. She’s a problem, Agent Barton, with an obvious solution.”_

_He’d seen her kill, with efficient professionalism. He’d seen her and her companion lay traps and ambushes, fight impossible odds and win. He’d seen how dangerous she was._

_He’d also seen a woman in love, laughing and joyful. A woman with courage and self-control, who’d more than once gone out of her way to make sure civilians weren’t injured by the people hunting them._

_He’d seen the Black Widow, yes. But he’d also seen Natalia Romanova._

_And he’d liked them both._

_So when he saw the other sniper shoot at the man on the rooftop of the building where Black Widow was holed up Clint didn’t think twice about snapping off an arrow. The guy wasn’t going to be taking a second shot with his arm impaled to the tar paper._

_Black Widow’s…whatever he was ducked into the building again. There were at least two explosions and then…more men. More cars. They were wearing Russian made gear but with no insignias. Clint took as many pictures as he could, from his perch a block away. So he was looking at the right window when he saw a flash of crimson hair on the fire escape._

_Shooting started up in the street on the far side. Since she was alone he had to think her companion was drawing fire to give her a chance to escape. Brave guy. Clint liked him too, now. He wanted to help him._

_But his mission was the woman so…he found her at the entrance to an alley, laid her path over the map of the city in his head and charged down the fire escape on his own building._

_A few minutes later the shooting behind him stopped, and then came the sound of a single gun shot. Poor guy._

_He heard her scream, high and shrill, like an animal being slaughtered and it nearly broke his heart. She’d cared about him, that dead man behind them._

_She noticed him following her way later than he would have thought but it was probably the grief. This was the first time since he’d picked up the trail in Warsaw that he’d had any kind of shot at her, so when she ducked down an alley, obviously a trap, he just went with it._

_Arrogant prick that he was, Hawkeye trusted his skills to keep him alive, even faced off against a killer like her._

_His reflexes were so astonishing that he managed to take her shot in the shoulder, on his armor, snap his bow out and pin her to the wall in one fluid motion._

_“Damn, that must have looked impressive,” he said in a casual voice as he approached her, stuck like a bug to a card._

_She wasn’t struggling. She wasn’t even glaring at him. Her face—she was incredibly beautiful in person, better even than her pictures—was sad and closed._

_“Just kill me,” she murmured in Russian, which he could understand a lot and speak a little._

_“Can you speak English?” He asked._

_She flinched, weirdly, but nodded._

_“You know who I am?” The question was to give him time to think. This situation was more fluid than he believed._

_“You’ve been behind us…me…since Cairo. You’re not with the Red Room, or…anyone else. And what kind of man carries a bow on the street? You’re Hawkeye, with the American agency. Shield.”_

_He felt absurdly proud she knew his code name, though that meant he was on someone’s hit list._

_“Technically we’re a shadowy extra-governmental agency but yes, I’m American. My name’s Clint. You’re…Natalia?”_

_“Yes. Kill me, man of Shield. That’s why you’re here, correct?”_

_“That’s what I was sent to do,” he said. He studied her, moving a little closer. It would take her at least two motions to get her arms out of her sleeves and attack him—his arrows hadn’t pierced the skin—and he thought he might be able to take her in a straight fight._

_Maybe. Probably not but maybe._

_She looked strung out, emotionally, at the end of not just her rope but at least two others spliced to the end of hers. She was battered, bruised, she had a big bandage on her neck. This was not someone in peak condition._

_Up close, frozen in place, she looked small and delicate, like a china doll. She looked young and she looked…heartbroken._

_“That guy you were with? He was your…boyfriend? Lover?”_

_“Lover?” She spat back at him. “Love is for children. Do I look like a child to you?”_

_“Well, you look younger than me, sure, but I’ve always looked about this age. I think I looked like this when I was in elementary school. Teachers kept trying to bum cigarettes off me.”_

_She laughed, a sharp surprised bark and he rocked back onto his heels, grinning._

_“Knew there was a human in there, somewhere. Look, red…it’s true I was sent after you to kill you. You’ve been on the radar for weeks, after that dust-up in Paris. I’ve been behind you since Warsaw—”_

_“Warsaw! No! I spotted you in Cairo the first time,” she snapped, sounding offended._

_“Lady, just cause you’re literally the best in the world at this doesn't mean everyone else is incompetent.”_

_“Hmph,” she snorted at him, a little life coming into her eyes. “Well, I was a distracted.”_

_“Yeah, ninety million dudes trying to take your head off will do that to anyone,” Clint agreed. Then he did something suicidal._

_He stepped up to her and pulled the arrows out of the bricks. She was on him in the next heartbeat, driving him back against the far wall, a knife to his throat._

_He looked down at her, his body tense but not struggling. “So, now you’re going to kill me?”_

_She had astonishing eyes, green as new mown grass. They were huge and liquid and brimming with both intelligence and grief._

_“If you kill me,” he said quietly, carefully, “then you’re signing your own death warrant. They’ll just keep coming, red. The ones who think they own you, the ones who killed your…friend back there. They want your head and they’ll take it.”_

_“You were sent to do the same,” she said, almost thoughtfully._

_“Look around. You see anyone checking up on me? You see a back up team? I’m out here, on my own, because…my boss is my boss. Not my handler, not my owner, not my watcher. I work for him because he’s the man with the plan but he sends me out to do my job and trusts me to do it. Even if that means throwing out the plan and making my own call.” He reached up and gently nudged the knife away from his throat, inching her back a step._

_“I’m making that call now. I think if you really wanted to die you’re more than capable of jumping into traffic yourself. I think someone…maybe not even you…wants you to live. Well, add me to the list. I’ve got a safe house outside of the city not even my own people know about. We can fix you up better than that ham-fisted first aid. We can talk about what I do and who I do it for. If you still wanna run, after you’ve slept and eaten and showered, I’ll let you walk out the front door. But I’m hoping I can talk you into sticking around. I’m very persuasive,” he finished with a grin._

_For a long time she just stared at him, the knife still ready in her hand. Then she slowly tucked it away. “Lead on, then…Clint?”_

_“Clinton Francis Barton,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you…?”_

_“Natali—Natasha Romanoff. Call me Nat.” She cocked her head at him. “Isn’t Francis a girl’s name?”_

*****

Clint sighed into Bobbi’s hair again. “Sometimes I think she felt she owed me more for saving him that day than not killing her. Not that she told me who he was. Just called him James to me.”

“She loved you, Clint. She did. She does. You’re not second place or second best. That was why she left you. Because you meant as much to her as he did and to her love meant nothing but agony and death,” Bobbi said plainly, knowing what he was thinking. 

He spun her around in his arms and kissed her thoroughly. “I know, little bird. I know. But it hurt bad and it still hurts. S’okay. I’d rather have that pain and my life with you than no scars and no Mockingbird.” 

She kissed him back, with an edge of desperation in the caress. “I have to tell them…What if—”

“No,” Clint said firmly. “They won’t. Look, I’m going to make hot chocolate and you go over to Emma’s place and ask her for some of that honey bourbon she was going on about. Then they’ll be here and you’ll find out I’m right.”

When the Starkcar pulled up in front of their house, between their own rental vehicle and the end of winter bare apple tree in the front yard, Bobbi stood up and walked into the side yard, to where a rope swing hung from another ancient fruit tree. She watched as Steve, Natasha and Barnes exited the car.

Barnes was wearing a sombrero for some reason, which Natasha made him throw back in the car before they walked to the house. There was a general greeting and Clint offered around cups of hot chocolate. Barnes accepted, taking Bobbi’s seat. 

Natasha and Steve turned and advanced towards her. She’d felt less fear facing down Doctor Doom and Ronan the Accuser. 

She found herself looking at the ground, swinging nervously back and forth, feeling about three years old and not in the slightest bit prepared for the conversation she was about to have. 

They stopped in front of her and she looked up. 

Steve was as angelic as ever, his ageless face more relaxed than she’d seen him. The combination of getting laid and having Bucky back seemed to have loosened something inside his head.

Natasha didn’t look furious. That was about the best she could do with her; she really was the greatest spy on the planet. Bobbi could read micro-expressions with the best of them but Natasha had her stumped at least seventy five percent of the time. 

As Bobbi opened her mouth, Natasha suddenly exclaimed: “Are you wearing a blue and white gingham dress? Were you kidnapped by settlers?” 

“Clint bought it for me in Savannah,” she blurted out. 

“Ah,” Natasha said, nodding sagely. “I never let him get away with that.”

“With what?” Steve asked in a nervous voice, looking back and forth between them.

“Little House On The Prairie fetish,” they said simultaneously.

Steve gulped and shifted his weight. He had his shield hung on his back, and he looked like he want to pull it out and brandish it at them both. 

Bobbi found herself smiling. “Sometimes I like feeling innocent and sweet.” 

Natasha snorted and gestured at her, _go on_.

Wincing, Bobbi started to swing again, looking away from them.

“We all have issues, right?” She said abruptly. “Clint’s self-destructive. Tony’s an alcoholic. Bruce has rage issues. Thor loses control. Sam’s got PTSD. Nothing you do is ever good enough, Steve. And you, Nat? You think you can never make up for your past. Me? I’ve got the cocktail, little of this little of that.”

She kicked harder, making the ropes squeak on the swing. “I’ve got PTSD. I’ve got the self control problems. I’m reckless. I’m arrogant. I’m self-hating. But most of all…I’m greedy.”

“I don’t understand?” Steve said, confused.

“I’m greedy,” she repeated. “Not for money or food or power….I’m greedy for…family. For love.”

Sighing, she stood up. She owed it to them to face them, though she was quaking in her soft ballet shoes. She was wearing thick beige tights in the late-winter chill and the fabric scratched restlessly at her shins. 

“I didn’t tell you Barnes was in town right away because frankly—I forgot the significance of it for a little bit. You all were alive. That miracle consumed my attention. And then…then I started to think about the situation. I tried to make myself believe I was keeping quiet because I wasn’t sure if he was going to hurt either of you. I mean, the last thing he’d done to both of you was shoot you, right?”

Natasha started to say something and Bobbi held up an abrupt hand. “No, I know that's utter bullshit, don’t worry. I didn’t keep quiet because I was concerned for the two of you. I’d _fought_ with him. Over the shield. He knew what it meant, what you both meant. That was James Buchanan Barnes, not the Winter Soldier, in his head.”

She paced towards the split rail fence and back again, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you he was in town, I was willing to let him leave without telling you because…I was afraid that having him here, broken and needy, would take both of you away from _me_. I was afraid this man—whom you both love—would pull focus away from _me_.” She looked up at both of them, her eyes dry, her face twisted in agony. “Other than Clint, you two…you are my family. I mean, the whole team is but you two…my life revolves around the three of you, Clint at the center yes, but Mars isn’t less impressive because it’s further away than the moon. Oh fucking gods, that sounds worse than the first time I said it.” She clutched her chest, doubling over, her diaphragm cramping. She couldn’t breath. “I was going to cripple you both, destroy you both, destroy him—a man as horribly abused and damaged as anyone could be—because I was afraid you’d _stop paying as much attention to me._ Kill me now, seriously. Just…kill me.”

She gasped, unable to draw oxygen into her lungs. 

Two hand touched her shoulders, one big and square, the other delicate and fine boned.

“Bobbi. You screwed up. I’m disappointed in you. But mostly I’m mad. How could you ever believe I stop thinking about you, sis? You’re my favorite sparring partner,” Steve said, his voice stern, but in a loving way.

“ _My dearest sister. Tony spoke a harsh truth to me about you: whatever you did here—as bad as it was—someday I will do the same to you,_ ” Natasha said in quick Russian. “ _So, let this be payment beforehand, for when I hurt you. Let the unforgivable be forgiven._ ”

Bobbi looked up at both of them again, her eyes wet with tears. “I d-d-d-d-don’t d-d-d-d-deserve—”

“You deserve love and forgiveness. As do we all. As does my James. Come, sestra. Meet him for real. You’ll like him. He’s like Clint, if Clint was an adult.”

And with his usual impeccable timing Clint yelled from the porch. “Nobody move over there!”

They all froze in place to hear a swift humming noise in the air and a metallic _shing_ as a quarter struck Steve’s shield at an oblique angle, then rebounded off the tree trunk, two fence posts, the tree trunk again, the baton holster strapped to Bobbi’s thigh and the rim of the shield one last time to go soaring gently back towards the house and land with a delicate chiming noise in Bobbi’s abandoned mug on the railing. 

“Ha!” Yelled Clint. “In your face Barnes!”

“Oh, gods, I married a twelve year old,” Bobbi muttered. 

“I broke up with him,” Natasha said, righteously. 

Steve just laughed and ran a hand over his face.

Tentatively Bobbi slid her arms around their waists, letting them flank her. For the first time since she’d lead them into Central Park, Bobbi felt the sucking wound of self-hatred in her soul scab over. 

As they approached the porch the look of profound relief on Clint’s face was enough to make her think maybe everything would be okay. 

She studied Barnes, her head cocked. He studied her back.

He was a good looking man, in a rough and unsettling way. Long unkempt dark hair, strong face, soulful, haunted eyes. His mouth was wide and generous, his body lean and hard. If she hadn’t had Clint, she’d have been panting for him herself. 

Stepping close, Bobbi leaned in for a moment, then snatched his wrist into her hand. He tensed, staring at her wide-eyed.

“Relax, Buck. She only bites Clint,” Steve said, grinning.

“Buddy, she beat the crap out of me the first time I met her. I mean, I haven’t lost a fight in years and I’ve still got baton shaped bruises,” Bucky said in a concerned voice.

“Well yes I was insane just then. And motivated and when did you eat last?”

“What?”

Bobbi snarled in exasperation and turned to Natasha. “When? And what?”

“Some execrable pancake house near a fairly racist Mexican themed-tourist trap on the border. He had…waffles and bacon.”

Bobbi eyed Steve with displeasure. “He needs the same kind of calories you do, Rogers. Jesus I’d think you’d try to look out for him, he’s supposedly your best friend, right?”

“Steve? What is the crazy lady talking about?” Bucky said in a faint worried voice.

“She’s obsessed with the amount of food I eat. And now you too. Get used to it. It’s like being trailed by a heavily armed mother hen,” Steve said with a sigh. 

Bobbi reached out and grabbed the back of his neck, then did the same to Bucky. “Clint, door. You two are sitting down and eating at least eight thousand calories a piece right this instant. Did no one ever think to tell you guys anything about your metabolisms? I should have been running that damn program, I tell you what…” she trailed off as she dragged Captain America and the Winter Soldier into the kitchen. 

Abandoned on the porch, Clint and Natasha shared an amused look.

“You okay, red? You need me at all?” Clint said quietly, seriously.

“I always need you, Hawkeye,” she replied, slipping her arm into his. “But now I just need you to help me make sure your wife doesn't feed the boys to death.”

“They can take care of themselves,” Clint said with a snort.

“Yeah,” Natasha replied, then leaned up to kiss his cheek. “But they don’t have to. We can all look after each other, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, "The Trial of the Winter Soldier"
> 
> DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNNNN


End file.
